Conversations I’d hear in Wyoming after someone I did not know but was connected to the group I traveled amongst OD’d.
Very quietly they’d ask each other ” do you think he knew? Was it intentional?” As if the threshold for healthy drug consumption was consistent and universally known for all of them and the only way they could have possible let themselves slip away was if it were intentional.
I’m reminded of that Puscifer song Breathe, where the chorus is quite literally a reminder to ‘don’t forget to breathe ‘ and perhaps there where moments in my relaxed state where I had to tell myself to inhale because I was so comfortable that this function that is taken for granted as autonomous eluded me. I was just lucky that my experiments didn’t take me somewhere blacker than the deepest pitch.
I knew guys who would go to people’s houses, pretending their car was broken down so that they could use the restroom and raid the medicine cabinet. I knew guys who would enter into relationships with people who had crippling disabilities.. not to provide comfort for that person but to exploit their monthly prescription for personal use and were abusive in their manipulations and the poor girl was so love hungry and guilt ridden over her own personal history that despite my best efforts I could not help her get into a healthier space. (I’m sorry Christina, when I read about your death I was shook but they frightened me too much to intercede further, especially when you yourself were unwilling)
At one point the son of a local cop, and fellow high school attendee robbed the pharmacy with a friend by climbing through the duct work. The only reason they were caught was because they wouldn’t shut up about it at parties.
I had this naive sense that the big guy I was with could protect me from the other unsavory sorts I had already experienced previously and sure maybe our home for a time was safer than others but ultimately his desire for a particular lifestyle cost us that safety and trust. I don’t blame him as I am also responsible for the peices I participated in and accepted as just natural behaviors of those I was surrounded by, I had just hoped that given his proclaimed history of trauma that we were both of the mindset to craft something better.
To escape I didn’t exactly take the path of complete sobriety but chose the process of elimination to take out those things I found most detrimental to my personal wellness.
Today I am far removed from that which was but my experiences crafted something more fearful in me about the greater state of our social climate and I hear